Kohlegeister: material performance on coal and its ghosts.

»Kohlegeister« is a material performance by the KMZ KOLLEKTIV exploring coal as a compressed space of history and the ghosts that dwell within it. The Berlin-based collective digs into the global energy entanglements of the dark fuel: since the last hard-coal mines closed in Germany in 2018, imports feed the unbroken hunger for energy, with much of the black gold coming from the El Cerrejón mega-mine in Colombia. In the name of the global North's energy transition, the mine cuts through the territory of the Wayúu, destroying their natural and spiritual habitats, where, according to indigenous cosmology, not only people but also ghosts live. Using briquette pyramids, mirrors, light reflections, drum rhythms and rituals, the collective tries to restore interrupted connections and summon the coal ghosts in the theatre.